


a handful of stars

by seijuro



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Alternate Universe - Imaginary Friends, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-08
Updated: 2015-07-08
Packaged: 2018-04-08 08:32:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4297860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seijuro/pseuds/seijuro
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Akashi meets his first friend (again, and again, and again).</p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>The head maid patted Akashi’s head again in her own strange version of a goodbye. “Anything else?”</p>
  <p>The boy was staring at Akashi now. He was older than Akashi was by years (which wasn't much - practically anyone and everyone was older than five as Akashi was beginning to realize) and it made him taller, smoothed the edges of his face into sharp lines. Akashi put a hand to his own chubby cheeks.</p>
  <p>“He looks,” said Akashi, “a little bit sad.”</p>
</blockquote>
            </blockquote>





	a handful of stars

**Author's Note:**

> [side ao3](http://archiveofourown.org/users/kashima) | [twitter](http://twitter.com/shuuzounijimura) | [tumblr](http://seijuurouakashi.tumblr.com)
> 
> cross-posted from BPS @ tumblr! based on a prompt found on [this blog](http://auideas.tumblr.com) but for spoilers' sake i'll avoid linking it here. though if you want it you're more than welcome to ask!
> 
> any and all feedback would be highly appreciated!

*

_the beginning_

*

**(AT FIRST.)  
** **i.**

The first time Akashi saw him, he was small and young enough to know that if he saw a stranger in his bedroom, it was worth yelling to the maids about. When the maids came in, they pushed him back into bed, pulled the sheets over him (though by that point they were more of a sad excuse for a strait jacket), patted his head, and went on their merry way.

The head maid, who had a bit of a belly bulging under her dress and fine wrinkles slipping away at the sides of her eyes, said, “There’s nobody there. Please don’t worry about it.”

Akashi stared. The boy in front of his bed did not seem to be going away. “He’s still there,” said Akashi, pointed his finger ahead. “Right there.”

“Is he now?” To anyone else Akashi was pointing into empty space but to Akashi it was real - the boy in front of his bed was staring straight at him, not saying a word.

“Yes,” said Akashi. Even at age five he was certain he was right. “He’s looking right at you.”

The head maid pretended to humour him, looked right at the space directly ahead of Akashi’s small finger. “My eyesight isn’t so good, you see. I’m getting quite old.”

Akashi tore his gaze away to look at her. “I know.”

“So what is  _he_ wearing?”

Akashi squinted. “A suit. I think.”

The head maid patted Akashi’s head again in her own strange version of a goodbye. “Anything else?”

The boy was staring at Akashi now. He was older than Akashi was by years and it made him taller, smoothed the edges of his face into sharp lines. Akashi put a hand to his own chubby cheeks.

“He looks,” said Akashi, “a little bit sad.”

**(SECOND.)  
** **ii.**

“An imaginary friend?” Akashi pulled the stuffed animal up from the side of his bed and slid it under the blankets. He furrowed his brow.

“Yes.” His mother sat on the bed beside him, and he moved over for her to fit under the blanket as well. She smelled like cinnamon and tea. Akashi snuggled closer to her. With one hand on his head, she said, “You made him up. I had an imaginary friend when I was your age, too.”

Akashi sat up to stare at the space ahead where The Boy had been and saw nothing. “But he was _real._ ”

“Yes.”

Akashi frowned at her. “But you just said I made him up.”

“That doesn’t mean he’s not real to you.”

That was what he liked about his mother. Akashi squinted and The Boy was back. “Why do I have an imaginary friend?”

“There’s nothing wrong with it,” said his mother.

He frowned again. Surely his mother was right.

After she left, Akashi scooted to the edge of his bed. The boy didn’t move. He was very quiet, Akashi noticed - quiet and sad and halfway there.

“Are you going to talk to me?” said Akashi.

The Boy looked him in the eye for a second time that day. “Why should I?”

“Because,” Akashi declared, “you’re my imaginary friend. And I think that’s what friends do.”

The Boy looked at him again. When he was closer, Akashi could see how much taller he was. He was probably a teenager. Probably.

“I am?”

“That’s what I said, isn’t it?” Akashi said, feeling impatience at the tips of his fingers. “You’re my friend. So you should probably act like it.”

The Boy laughed and took a few steps so that he was standing next to Akashi. “You’re a demanding little brat.”

Akashi smiled proudly. “I know. My father told me.”

The Boy looked taken aback at that and, albeit hesitantly, took a seat in Akashi’s bed. It didn’t make a sound.

“I’ve never had a friend before,” Akashi said at last. He was busy staring at The Boy, at the wrinkles in his nice suit. Was he uncomfortable?

“I can tell.”

Akashi scowled at him before it straightened into a smile. The Boy, again, looked taken aback. “So that makes you my first. Aren’t you honoured?”

“A little.”

“Good. You should be.”

When he looked to ask The Boy another question, he was gone.

**(THIRD.)  
** **iii.**

“Where did you go?” Akashi said when The Boy came back. The day had been slow and he was a little sulky; his father was busy (and being busy somewhere outside of the house), and his mother was in her room where the maids said he couldn’t visit. The Boy stood beside his bed again, a little awkwardly, a little too long-legged and tall than he seemed comfortable. Remembering that The Boy was imaginary and came and went as Akashi pleased, he said, “Nevermind.”

“Doesn’t matter,” said The Boy. He had his hands in the pockets of his suit and his tie was a little messy. “I’m back, anyways.”

“I suppose,” said Akashi. He looked at The Boy again and patted the side of his bed until The Boy sat down.  _Weird,_ Akashi thought. “Don’t you have a name?”

“I–”–he paused, as if trying to remember/forget something–”–don’t think so. You made me up. So you can give me a name.”

“Mayuzumi.”

“What?”

“Mayuzumi,” Akashi said again with clear conviction. Mistaking Mayuzumi’s disbelief for confusion, he said, “He’s a book character.”

Mayuzumi’s eyebrows shot up. “Yeah? What does he do?”

“I haven’t read the book in a while.” Akashi shifted in his seat. “I think he’s a hero.” He glanced at Mayuzumi. “I think.”

“That’s funny.”

“What?”

“Nevermind,” Mayuzumi said, and Akashi, who was too young to understand or care, let it go.

**(FOURTH.)  
iv.**

“Are you afraid of me?” Mayuzumi said one day.

“Why should I be?” Akashi said, and that was the end of that.

**(FIFTH.)  
** **v.**

“You’re pretty young, right?” said Mayuzumi. Akashi hopped off the bed and walked towards the bookshelf where Mayuzumi stood, running his long fingers along the spines as if a heavy touch would break them. Akashi blew on the shelf and the dust fled until it some of it was in his face. He rubbed at his eyes.

“Five,” Akashi told him.

“That’s young.” His face twisted up in thought.

“Only because you’re really old,” Akashi said without missing a beat. He stood on his tiptoes, reaching up to grab a book and missing by a good five inches. Usually the maids (or his mother) got the books for him, but it had been a while since either of them did.

“I’m not even that old!” Mayuzumi snapped.

“Older than me,” Akashi informed him helpfully. Mayuzumi grabbed the book and pulled it down, dropping it in Akashi’s hands. Akashi blinked. “Oh. Thank you.” Something felt wrong and yet nothing did.

“Whatever,” Mayuzumi said, still upset by the age comment. He put his hands in his pockets. “I just got tired of watching you trying to grab it with your short-ass arms.”

“That’s a bad word.” Akashi flipped through the pages of the book.

“ _Whatever_.”

Akashi walked back towards his bed, glancing behind him when Mayuzumi didn’t follow. “Come on. I want to read you this book.”

“I can read by myself.”

“So can I. But I want to read you this one.” He held it up. “It’s the one with Mayuzumi - not you, but Mayuzumi. It’s called  _A Handful of Stars._ ”

“I know,” Mayuzumi said, but followed him anyway.

His lamp was a little dim and did not chase away the shadows, but in the dark, Akashi decided Mayuzumi didn’t look so sad.

**(SIXTH.)  
** **vi.**

“ _And then_ ,” Akashi said, traced the line of ink and words with his index finger, “ _Mayuzumi took the stars back. And he put them in his great big bag until he could return them to the sky and_ –” He paused.

“Meticulously,” Mayuzumi said. “Meh-tic-yoo-lus-lee.”

“– _meticulously_ ,” Akashi said, stumbling a little over the word, “ _he counted them one by one until he was certain they were all there and the constellations would be in place._ ” He put the book down and yawned. Before he could pick it back up, Mayuzumi snatched it away. Akashi blinked at him and said, mid-yawn, “What are you doing?”

“Making sure you go to bed on time.”

“You’re not my mom,” Akashi told him, and was cut off by another yawn.

“Maybe not, but I’m your friend. A good friend wouldn’t let you stay up too late.” Mayuzumi stood up and turned towards the bookcase.

Akashi struggled to sit up in bed for a moment before falling back into the sheets. Still, he protested: “I want to finish the book! We’re almost at the end!”

“No,” said Mayuzumi. Akashi could tell it was not up for discussion. “There’s always tomorrow.”

“Promise?”

“Whatever.”

Akashi closed his eyes, seemingly content. “Okay.”

(If he stayed awake for another moment, which he did not, he would have heard Mayuzumi say goodnight.)

*****

_the middle_

*

**(SEVENTH.)  
** **vii.**

Mayuzumi was standing in front of the bookshelf when Akashi dropped his bags. “Oh. You’re here,” Akashi said, as if Mayuzumi hadn’t been, every day, for the past five years.

Mayuzumi didn’t look away from the books. In five years he hadn’t changed his suit, but to ten-year old Akashi he no longer looked as tall. He tried to imagine Mayuzumi in something other than the suit and could not.

“Surprise.” He pulled out a book and flipped open the cover, running his eyes over the page before putting it back and taking another. Without glancing at Akashi, he said, “Usually you’re back earlier than this. Something happen?”

Akashi strode to his bed and stayed there, let the both of them stand in the silence. The drawn curtains made everything quieter. “Not really.”

“It was a yes or no question.”

“No, then,” Akashi said. “I think.” When he turned, Mayuzumi was looking at him with drawn eyebrows and it made him think of their first meeting. “What?”

“You’re lying.”

Akashi hopped into bed and pulled the covers over him as if he was still five and the darkness could still make everything go away. The bed was becoming smaller and soon he would need a new one. He pressed his face into his pillow, let it wash away the hospital smell from the hospital visit.

“I don’t wanna talk about it,” Akashi told him. His voice was muffled by the pillow and he dug his nails into the sheets.

Mayuzumi hesitated. Akashi guessed he had never been in this kind of situation before. “Do you want to read, then?”

The books made him think of someone he did not want to think of.

“No,” said Akashi. Then: “Maybe later.”

It was the end of one thing and perhaps the beginning of another.

**(EIGHTH.)  
** **viii.**

For a while their conversations would come and go like that - Mayuzumi asking, one-word answers, Akashi living in the curve of a lie.

Mayuzumi was always  _there_ , although sometimes he did not say a word.

Sometimes it was enough and sometimes it wasn’t.

**(NINTH.)  
** **ix.**

Akashi was different in all the ways he  _wasn’t._  He didn’t look or feel any different when he looked in the mirror, but sometimes Mayuzumi looked at him as if he were a different person altogether. That was fine, Akashi thought, after months of not-quite conversations came and went.  _People went. People changed. People died._

The tall boy in his class with green hair made pleasant company and was a pleasant distraction. When Akashi saw Mayuzumi, all he could think of was his mother.

Sometimes he spent days staying by his mother’s side and resting his head on her chest to make sure every heartbeat was there. Other times he was not allowed in the hospital and only stayed in his room where it was too dark and too dusty and he was outgrowing the bed faster than he was outgrowing the idea of imaginary friends.

“Do you think she’s going to die?” Akashi asked without specifying who, without needing to.

Mayuzumi shrugged. “Everyone dies.”

Akashi looked at the book in his lap. “I know. I just hope she’ll be an exception.”

**(TENTH.)  
** **x.**

“You don’t have to talk to me,” Mayuzumi said one day when Akashi was in bed and almost asleep. He was on the line between sleep and awake; he was awake enough to listen but too tired to care. “You don’t have to do anything. But I’m…here for you, I think.”

Akashi laughed and rolled onto his stomach. “You’re not real.”

“I’m real to you.”

“You’re my imagination.” Akashi said, finally. His stomach hurt from the dinner he didn’t eat and he buried his face into the sheets again. He felt stupid and alone for being ten-years old and having no friends but an imaginary one. When he was younger, it was enough. “You’re just going to tell me what I want to hear.”

(Younger, younger, younger.)

He made the mistake of looking at Mayuzumi and the expression on his face felt like a punch to the gut.

“Well,” said Mayuzumi, holding up the book, “the realest things come from your imagination.”

**(ELEVENTH.)  
** **xi.**

Akashi picked the book up and hid himself in his bed before saying, “I want you to read me a book.”

Mayuzumi glanced at him. “Isn’t the bed too small for both of us?”

“I don’t care,” Akashi said, and Mayuzumi listened.

Ten was older(er), ten was double-digits, ten was almost old enough to  _not_ be counted in fingers but a ten-year old was still a child.

For a little bit he wanted to imagine he was five, and everything was alright, and everything was so much simpler than the pile of hospital bills and the bags under his dad’s eyes. Mayuzumi took his usual place under the blanket.

“What do you want to read?”

“You know the answer to that already,” Akashi said. He paused. “And I want  _you_  to read it to me.”

Mayuzumi, as usual, did not ask, and Akashi was grateful. “Okay.”

For a sharp moment he allowed himself to pretend he was five again.

“You know,” Mayuzumi told him as he opened the book, “I think she’ll get better. I’m the hero, remember?  _A Handful of Stars._ ”

“Really?” asked Akashi. He moved so that he was right next to Mayuzumi. Mayuzumi was still in the suit and Akashi had to shake his head; it couldn’t have been comfortable to sit in a bed, in the same suit. He wrinkled his nose but said nothing.

“Really,” said Mayuzumi, and began to read.

**(TWELFTH.)  
** **xii.**

_“You’re just going to tell me what I want to hear.”_

**(THIRTEENTH.)  
** **xiii.**

The funeral was on a Monday and Akashi went to see his mother being buried six-feet under instead of going to school. His mom had been a time bomb from the very beginning; she had known it and his father had known it and  _he_ had known it and so had Mayuzumi. The visits had stretched the counter out a little more but never stopped it, never could. She was a sickly woman from the start and the childbirth had only made it worse. In the earlier years he did not like to think about why she hardly moved around, why she was in her room, why there were constant visits to the doctor.

(He was met with the answer now.)

It felt like someone had reached between his ribs and strung his heart right out, cutting it on the edge of his bones. It was humid and above and beyond there was nothing but grey. Sweat made his suit sticky and uncomfortable. His mother would have hated it.

Akashi squeezed his father’s hand like he would never have to let go.

The funeral was stupid and impersonal. There were business partners and family friends and pitying people all the same, acting as if they wanted to remember his mother in words but would forget her the minute the ceremony was gone. His father, ever the responsible husband, said a few words about her and then bit the rest back. He preferred to leave open wounds alone.

It did not feel real and he wished it wasn’t but it  _was,_ it was real in the coffin and the sea of people in black clothing, the pain in his chest that kept his eyes dry and caught his breath. He felt as if he’d swallowed a handful of glass.

When it was over and the tombstone was up and she was really,  _really_ gone, his father went off to talk with people who would tell him they were sorry and spout stories about the woman he’d spent at least ten years of his life with. Akashi stood in front of the tombstone, light-headed in the black suit. The grey had parted and the sun beat down on him. Sweat slid down the back of his neck.

“I’m sorry,” Mayuzumi said. Akashi looked and he was beside him, appropriately dressed in the same old suit. Akashi could have laughed. “I–”

“I know,” Akashi interrupted. “And I don’t care.”

He watched Mayuzumi bite his lip.

“You don’t have to pretend, you know,” Akashi said. His voice betrayed him and cracked in his throat. It was too hot. He wanted to go home and sleep and never wake up.

He was angry; how could he not have been? They’d all broken promises - his father, his mother, but most of all Mayuzumi.

(He was angrier at himself for believing.)

“I’m  _not,_ ” Mayuzumi snapped, and looked as though he wanted to take it back. “I’m not pretending.”

Akashi no longer wished to look at him. “Then don’t lie.”

“So that’s what this is about?” Mayuzumi laughed. It was the first and only time Akashi would ever hear him laugh. “What did you want me to say?”

“What you meant.”

“You’re ten. I wasn’t about to tell you your mother had less than half a year left to live.”

It was Akashi’s turn to bite his lip and he did it so hard he drew blood.

( _stop it stop it stop it)_

“You even told me,” Mayuzumi said, “that I’ll say what you want to hear. It’s not my fault. You’re the one who believed me.” The minute he said it, his face crumbled.

Akashi’s chest ached and the dryness in his eyes made him want to claw them right out. He wanted it to stop. He wanted his imagination to halt.

“I don’t need you anymore,” Akashi said, louder than was necessary. He rubbed at his eyes again and again and again. “I’m too old for imaginary friends. I have real ones, like Midori–” He stopped.

“You don’t mean that,” Mayuzumi said. His voice was soft.

“You’re a liar.” The words were coming faster and faster and he hoped they filled the gash running up and down his chest. “You’re a filthy  _liar_ and you’re not a hero and–”

“I’m not a hero. I’m your friend.”

( _STOP IT just FUCKING STOP IT–)_

“My imaginary friend,” Akashi said. The voices stopped. He was alone with the sound of himself. Mayuzumi stood there, close enough to touch. “You’re imaginary first. And I want you to go away.”

There was blissful silence.

“Okay,” Mayuzumi said. “You’re right. I’m imaginary.”

(He’d never ever  _ever_ sounded so–)

“So go back,” Akashi said. “Go back to being imaginary. Leave me alone.”

Mayuzumi obeyed.

**(FOURTEENTH.)  
** **xiv.**

When he was at home, beautifully and gloriously alone, he saw  _A Handful of Stars_ on his bed.

Akashi threw it out.

**(FIFTEENTH.)  
** **xv.**

His father suggested he move rooms, and Akashi did not object.

**(SIXTEENTH.)  
** **xvi.**

For the first month or so, Mayuzumi would appear and reappear. They always met eyes but never said a thing; Akashi would not listen to him either way. In a way this was what he supposed growing up was like, what growing up was  _about_  (leaving people behind).

Sometimes he thought of he time they spent together and the conversations Mayuzumi held with him when no one else would, but he did not often. They no longer mattered.

He started speaking with Midorima more, abandoning childish books for shogi boards.

On the days when Mayuzumi was there, Akashi would will him out of his imagination until he was gone.

After a certain point, he did not come back.

Akashi closed his eyes.

*

_the end_

*

**(SEVENTEENTH.)  
** **xvii.**

“I talked with him,” came a voice on the other side. Akashi pressed the phone into the space between cheek and shoulder, pulled his laptop open and watched it come alight with a click of the keys. Midorima’s voice was static. “He requested another conference with you before things are confirmed, but…” A pause.

“I take it you arranged the conference yourself. When is it?” He put the phone down to stretch his arms, feeling a soreness at the base of his neck that made him cringe away. Akashi made a mental note to get that checked out later.

“Well–”–there was the sound of flipping papers–”–the next available time is in two weeks. However, I did get him to agree not to make any other arrangements until then.”

“Good,” Akashi said. He leaned back in his chair. “Then that’s all settled.”

He could practically feel Midorima bristling. “Are you sure you’re okay with this?” Midorima said, as if Akashi ever changed his mind after making a business decision. “You’re not going to have any free time for at least three weeks. I’d prefer if you had your father handle this.”

Midorima had good intentions but often never saw the situation through the lense needed to understand it. Shaking his head, Akashi said, “He’s not in town at the moment. Why should I have him handle it when I’m perfectly capable of doing it myself?”

Midorima scoffed in sheer disbelief. “You’re only eighteen.”

Akashi smiled and the lines of it were sharp even though Midorima was not there to see it. “Eighteen is plenty old enough to have a hand in the family business. If I so wished I could become the head of the company at this very moment.”

“Why do you want to rush through your life like that? Let yourself be a kid for once.”

Akashi stilled and his hand stopped on the mouse. The computer screen froze into place. The journal he used to record strictly business-related things looked, for a moment, as if it was another book entirely. He snatched it and turned it over in his hands to make sure it wasn’t.

He wasn’t aware he hadn’t answered until Midorima said, “Seijuurou? Are you there? Are you alright?”

“Perfectly alright,” Akashi lied, and hung up. He let the phone fall against the surface of his desk before standing up on shaky legs.

He ran a quick hand through his bangs. Eighteen wasn’t old, but it was old enough. He’d been trained long enough to know how to pull the right strings. Then again, Akashi thought, closing his laptop shut, when you were practically born to carry on the family name, you didn’t have much of a choice. The house was empty without his father and the maids were gone. He welcomed the silence and shivered, still in his work clothes. The lamp threw a meager glow across the room in the face of darkness.

_Let yourself be a kid for once._ He shook his head fervently.

Things were going to be alright, Akashi reminded himself. The business deals were fine and so was the company. His father was out of town securing a deal. He could take care of himself.

Akashi slid his phone into his pocket, rubbing his neck. The pain didn’t seem like it was going to stop anytime soon and his stomach cried out in protest. All he’d eaten for the past day was a piece of toast. He glanced at the clock. 11:00 P.M wasn’t all that late.

They had pain medicine and food downstairs. Akashi padded out of his room and down the empty hallway. There was no sound, not even his feet against the floor. He stopped to shiver again.

There was no one and nothing in the rooms nearby lining the hallway. What had once been his mother’s room was locked and gone and had been since the funeral. He closed his eyes and tried to remember what it was like, and nearly laughed when he couldn’t. It didn’t come across as a surprise; when he closed his eyes all he could see was hospital-white and his mother in the bed. He could not even remember the angles of her face or what had made her smile and laugh.

( _“I had an imaginary friend when I was your age, too.”)_

He chewed on his lower lip. He hadn’t thought about his mother or the funeral in years. What was the point in starting now? All he needed to do was grab the painkillers and a quick bite of food from downstairs. It would be okay. He would be okay.

Presently his hands were shaking without a sign of stopping and the pain in his neck had spread to his head.

Time stood still, as did he. The only sound, slow and deliberate, was that of a door opening.

He did not have to turn around to know it was the door to his old room. He shut his eyes tight and forced himself, one move by another, to turn around. A voice in his head screamed at him:  _ignore it ignore it get the meds get the food ignore it go back–_

He wanted to listen, but Akashi had never been able to let sleeping dogs lie. He walked towards his room, one step at a time. The house was dead silent save for the sound of his breathing and the rhythm of his heartbeat.

Pushing the door open, he stood alone in the doorway of his old room. The window was open and the curtain in front of it billowed like a sail. Akashi hugged himself, shivered again. With a trembling hand, he pulled his phone out of his back pocket and took another step forward. The room was as it had been for years - untouched. The bookshelf was still lined with books. Some were missing and the spaces in between reminded him of the gaps between teeth. The bed was a dark mass draped in shadows. If he squinted hard enough, he could see himself in the bed, curled around a book, beside The Boy in the suit.

Why was the window open? Why was the door?

His hand tightened around his phone to the point of pain. Akashi took another step forward.

There was a figure standing in front of the window and all he could see was its outline. He did not need to.

“Mayuzumi?” Akashi said, saying a name he hadn’t spoken for years. He no longer looked as tall or as far away as he had when Akash was five or ten, but–

But–

The dark kept Akashi from seeing the expression on his face. His hand struggled to keep its grasp on his phone.

The door behind him slammed shut without a word and Akashi whirled around, dashing back towards it and putting his hand to the knob. He shook it once, twice,  _three_ times when it would not open. Throwing another look over his shoulder, Akashi saw the figure in front of the window was gone as if it had never been there in the first place.

(Akashi knew better than that, knew  _Mayuzumi_ better than that, knew–)

A scream lodged in his throat and when he finally managed the wrench the door open, he slammed it shut behind him.

Stumbling into his room, Akashi fell into his bed, pulled the blanket over his shoulders. The lamp was still on. He needed it to be on.

He turned on the phone in his hand and dialed Midorima’s number without thinking. In a way it was like he was a child again, hiding himself away in his bed as he always tended to do, although this time he did not welcome the darkness with open arms.

“Seijuurou?” Midorima’s voice was sleepy before the concern set in. “What is it? What happened?”

Akashi pressed the phone closer to his ear. Nothing had happened, he told himself. It was just his imagination at work.

(That was the problem.)

(Imaginary friends weren’t meant to come back.)

(Doors and windows weren’t meant to open/close on their own.)

Choosing to tell him the truth, Akashi said, “I don’t know.”

**(EIGHTEENTH.)  
** **xviii.**

“It wouldn’t surprise me if you thought I was crazy,” Akashi said. He put the coffee cup down and rubbed his neck, throat and mouth still burning with the taste of coffee.

“That’s not it.” Midorima put his own cup down and looked at Akashi for a long moment. “I just don’t really understand.”

Letting out a shaky breath, Akashi said, “Me neither.” They’d taken a “break” from work (one that, Midorima had told him, was  _extremely_ overdue) and already he was beginning to feel restless. He’d hardly gotten any sleep and he was beginning to feel it in a way that went beyond lead-heavy limbs and eye bags.

Midorima had yet to look away from him. Akashi was sure that had it been anyone else, they would have disregarded it. He couldn’t blame them - of  _course_ he couldn’t - but it was comforting how Midorima believed him, even if he was only pretending. No matter what, he knew what he saw had been real - Mayuzumi’s silhouette in front of the open window and the open door.

(After all, he thought, the realest things came from your imagination.)

“You said you started seeing your imaginary friend again,” Midorima said, recounted the details he could remember. “After eight years. And you saw him in a room you practically abandoned for the same amount of time.”

Akashi let out a small burst of nervous laughter. “When I hear it from you, it does sound ridiculous.”

Midorima shook his head. “That’s not it. I believe you.”

“So what do I do about it?” He picked the coffee cup up and put it back down in distaste when he realized it was empty. “About him?”

“Well,” said Midorima, “you do what you would with any other old friend. You talk to him.”

**(NINETEENTH.)  
** **xix.**

_“You talk to him,_ ” Midorima had said.  _“And if it continues, we can see a professional._ ”

If only it were that simple! Perhaps Midorima was right and he was the only one overthinking everything, but otherwise he was certain there was more to it. Mayuzumi was his imagination, and Akashi had sent him away. So why was he back? He hadn’t thought of Mayuzumi - much less willed him back into existence - in a long while.  _Talk to him,_ Midorima had said. But how did one talk to a figment of their imagination? He rested his head on his desk, drummed his fingers on the surface of it in the rhythm of a goodbye.

His father would not be back from his trip for another week. Akashi stood up and wiped his hands on the front of his jeans. He wasn’t aware his hands had become sweaty in the first place. In a matter of steps, he was in front of his old bedroom. The door was closed. Akashi opened it, and was met with a wealth of light. It was still early enough in the day for there to be light and the sun had just barely begun its descent. The light inside was deep gold, as if even the sun wanted to preserve this moment in amber resin.

Once he was inside, he shut the door behind him. It was like looking into a moment eight years before, when he was younger and things were different and he had known without a doubt that Mayuzumi was his friend. (But not quite, Akashi knew. Eight years was a very long time and more than enough time for a lot to change. He thought of the door and the open window. Was Mayuzumi still his friend, anymore?)

“Mayuzumi?” Akashi said, a question to which he already knew the answer. Mayuzumi turned away from the bookcase and Akashi’s heart dropped in his chest. The book he was looking for was no longer on the shelf, and they both knew it.

“Akashi,” he answered, as if there had never been a goodbye in the first place. “Hey.”

He wanted to say Mayuzumi looked  _different,_ but although he had not known it at ten, he knew it at eighteen: the only one who had really changed was him. Mayuzumi still wore the suit and was still taller than Akashi was (there were, after all, some things that would never change) but he no longer looked so much older. The space between them had widened and narrowed all the same.

“It’s been…” Akashi stopped, bit his lip. “It’s been a long time.” He took a seat in his bed, brushing dust off the surface of it.  _A Handful of Stars_ was on it and he picked it up.

“Yeah,” said Mayuzumi. “I know.”

It was so much easier in theory. What was there to talk about? Mayuzumi wasn’t  _normal,_ wasn’t real. Small talk would have been an insult.

(He closed his eyes and opened them. Mayuzumi was still there.)

Without Akashi needing to ask him, Mayuzumi sat on the bed and it was the same as it had been years ago - only not. They really had outgrown it, Akashi realized. (Just as he had outgrown imaginary friends.)

“Why are you here?” Akashi said.

Mayuzumi shrugged. “I guess I never really left.”

**(TWENTIETH.)  
** **xx.**

“So?” said Midorima when Akashi brushed past him in the office. “How did it go?” Akashi did not have to hear it from Midorima to know what he was thinking:  _you’re alive. It must have gone alright._

Akashi shrugged. For a conversation they hadn’t had in eight years it was alright, but they had only toed the line and pretended as if they were the same as they always was. When he thought about that, the more he realized it really  _wasn’t_ alright. Mayuzumi was his imagination and he felt stupid enough when the door had opened that first night. He felt even worse thinking about telling his  _imagination_ about his problems (that had long since, Akashi realized, become more than when he was being read a bedtime story) or even apologizing.

(What  _was_ Mayuzumi, anyway?)

“Alright,” said Akashi. It wasn’t a lie but it wasn’t the truth, and Midorima knew it too.

Leaning against the desk and eyeing Akashi carefully, Midorima said, “Do you still want to get help?”

( _I guess I never really left.)._

“I don’t…” Akashi paused. He bit his lip. “I don’t know what he is.”

It was weird to Midorima; it must have been.

(He answered his own question:  _a hero/his friend/a lie._ )

“He doesn’t  _disappear,_ ” Akashi said when he saw the expression on Midorima’s face. He looked around at the employees around him. Another break wouldn’t hurt. “It’s like I don’t have control of my own imagination anymore.”

Midorima’s mouth was a firm line. “We could go,” he said. “After work.”

As if he did not hear Midorima’s reply, Akashi continued, “Although I’m not sure if I had control of it to begin with.”

**(TWENTY-FIRST.)  
** **xxi.**

The place Midorima took him to smelled of something he could only describe in colours and not words.  _Red,_ Akashi thought, pushing the door shut behind him. The wind chimes fell still against the glass and with the curtains over the windows and the door in place, he saw nothing but dark. A lamp in the corner offered the only light in the entire room and it was sprawled across the walls and floor in hapless shapes, snatched shadows from his face and never gave them back. Akashi drew his hands into fists and did not relax them.

“Did you need help?” The man at the desk eyed them both for a moment before stretching out in his chair. The carpet beneath him bore a pattern Akashi could not name and beneath light and shadow, the walls were covered with charms. For a moment he wanted to hold one in his hand, but it passed as quickly as it came.

Midorima nodded his head at him and, stepping forward, Akashi said, “Yes.”

“With what?” He leaned forward, drummed his fingers on the surface of the table. His eyes met Akashi’s and stayed there. The card on his desk read  _Mibuchi Reo._

Akashi stopped, thought of Mayuzumi disappearing but never leaving and  _A Handful of Stars_ , and told him the truth.

When he was done he focused on the wall behind Mibuchi, the one covered with so many little charms it looked like a sky of their own.. It didn’t stop him from seeing the expression on Mibuchi’s face and his heart pounded against his chest. Beside him, even Midorima had gone still.

“An imaginary friend,” Mibuchi said, as if to himself more than anyone else. He reached into the drawer behind him and yanked out a small book, flipping through the pages until he came to a blank one. “I’ve had a few cases where they–”–he reached back into the drawer and returned to the book with a piece of charcoal in his hand–”– pretend to befriend humans in a way that will benefit them.” He looked back up at Akashi and it was then that he noticed the paleness of his face. “You don’t have an imaginary friend on your hands. You have a demonic presence haunting you.”

(A hero?)

(As much as he wanted to believe that it  _wasn’t_ true, he knew that it was.)

Blinking twice, Akashi said, “A demon?”

Mibuchi didn’t glance at him. His voice was soft and pleasant. “I don’t think you’re very acquainted with the supernatural. That’s alright. Most people aren’t.” With the charcoal and blank paper, he drew something into the notebook. Akashi only watched. “A demonic presence. Somewhat like a ghost, if you’d prefer. They’re stuck between this world and the next.”

(Mayuzumi had lied before, had–)

“You stopped seeing this ‘friend’ of yours on your own when you outgrew him, correct? And now he’s back.”

Akashi bit his lip, still trying to understand. If Mibuchi was right, Mayuzumi had never been a part of Akashi’s imagination. All the times he’d thought he could have summoned and sent him away just by imagining it were lies, and Mayuzumi had played along. But  _why?_  Why had he let Akashi believe he was only imaginary? If he wanted something from Akashi, he wouldn’t have been his friend - or at least pretended.

(Why had Mayuzumi listened when Akashi told him to go away?)

“Not exactly,” Akashi said.

(No matter if he had been pretending. It was real to Akashi.)

“Demons need life force. That’s where you come in.” He looked up from the drawing. “You’re the one keeping him alive.”

(Akashi could have laughed.)

“At its worst?” he said. “What could happen at its worst?”

Mibuchi’s laughter was like clockwork. “This is a demon we’re talking about, not a friend. He could kill you.”

(Mayuzumi had never harmed him, not even once.)

_So what do we do about it?_ Akashi wanted to ask, before he realized it was a question to which he already knew the answer.

**(TWENTY-SECOND.)  
** **xxii.**

In the light of day his old room was almost as comforting as it used to be. Whenever he walked into the room it was as if he was intruding on something; the door would swing open, and he would stand in its open mouth, and Mayuzumi would stand at the other end of the room with a book in his hand and his finger on the page.

“You’re back,” Mayuzumi told him without looking up from the book. He put it down in disinterest and picked another up. Akashi knew he would only truly care for  _one_ book, anyhow.

In the years that he’d known Mayuzumi, he’d never stood beside him, shoulder-to-shoulder. They were always one step apart in some small way. Akashi walked towards the bookshelf until he was next to Mayuzumi. There was a stack of books on the floor.

“I suppose I am.”

Mayuzumi looked at him. “I’m pretty sure you’re too old for imaginary friends by now.”

His own words hurt like an open wound and an apology wouldn’t have changed a thing. Akashi knew it better than anyone else.

“That’s alright,” said Akashi. Neither of them looked away. “It doesn’t matter, anyway.”

“Does it?”

There was a reason why Mayuzumi was there, a reason why Mayuzumi had  _always_ been there, standing by the bed with the same sad expression.

Akashi sat down and took a book off the top of the pile. The edges of it were worn with care and he did not have to look at the cover to know it was  _A Handful of Stars._

“You know,” Akashi said, and Mayuzumi stopped. “You don’t have to pretend. I’m not ten anymore. You can tell me the truth.”

Mayuzumi took the book from his hands and flipped open the front cover. The words - Akashi saw them; Akashi knew them. When he was younger he had been able to recite the first page in his head, but the words had long since left him.. (Had they really, when they were still there and all he had to do was open the book?)

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“I do,” Akashi said. He thought of the words Mibuchi had used. “You’re not…”

“Imaginary?” He looked at Akashi and flipped the page without looking away.

“Yes.”

If Mayuzumi was surprised that Akashi  _knew,_ he did not show it. But why would he have been in the first place? It was harder to lie to an eighteen-year old than it was to a ten-year old. What confused Akashi more was why Mayuzumi hadn’t told him the truth to begin with. instead choosing to let him believe. It was still something he was trying to understand.

“How long have you known?” said Mayuzumi. It was a question Akashi himself was itching to ask. Their last meeting always replayed in his head, painfully and vividly clear. Even if it had happened eight years ago it felt like it had just happened yesterday. He remembered the heat that had been above/around him and the goodbye that followed like the back of his hand.

Akashi shrugged. A part of him had known that Mayuzumi was  _mor_ e, even if he never acknowledged it. “I just found out.”

He was upset at the both of them for pretending it was okay when it really wasn’t. It wasn’t like Mayuzumi (and wasn’t like Akashi, either) to avoid talking about the elephant in the room.

“He said,” Akashi told him when Mayuzumi didn’t answer, “that you were stuck.” He left it at that and trusted Mayuzumi to understand what he meant.

“That’s one way of putting it.”

There was something frustrating about it all and Akashi wanted to scream. Something in him (he guessed it was the ten-year old) wanted Mayuzumi to  _wonder_ and ask him how and why he’d found out in the first place, but he realized it did not matter. (Not to Mayuzumi, not to him, not to _anyone._ )

“What else did he say?” Mayuzumi asked him.

He probably knew. There was no way he could not.

“That you could kill people.” The same part of him before wanted Mayuzumi to scream, or to get angry, or to do something but take everything with a passive one-sentence reply that was so unlike him. “That you could kill me.”

( _Anyone could do that,_ Akashi realized. It didn’t take being a demonic presence.)

(What was tying Mayuzumi to the room?)

The silence felt like a heavy breath.

“I tried to save her,” Mayuzumi said. “I really did.”

**(TWENTY-THIRD.)  
** **xxiii.**

If he could have looked back on this moment in the future, the only thing that would have been really clear to him was that Mayuzumi understood; he understood that something was ending at that Akashi wasn’t ten and it was harder to pretend than it seemed. For someone (something?) who had lived as a lie for most of the time Akashi had known him, Mayuzumi was… Akashi would have shook his head.

There was something peaceful in just sitting in his dusty room with forgotten books and an old friend, although Akashi could not tell what it was. Perhaps it was the sense of closure. Perhaps it was the dream-like feeling he’d felt for the first time in eight years that sometimes bordered on a nightmare. He reminded himself to stop putting everything in words.

Mayuzumi’s words and their implications came and went until Akashi was forced to address them. _I tried to save her. I really did. / I think she’ll get better. / I’m sorry._ They were on repeat, never stopping, and Akashi was drawn into their orbit.

“What do you mean?” Akashi said after what seemed like forever in silence. “What do you mean you tried to save her?” The light had long since left them and its absence wept over them in black.

“I mean what I said. I tried to save her.” They were both on the bed and Akashi thought of how it would have looked to anyone else watching. Mayuzumi drew circles into the surface of the bed. “It didn’t really work out.”

“It’s alright,” Akashi said, even though it kind of wasn’t/was. Eight years was, again, a long time. Maybe it was alright to him because he didn’t exactly believe. “Everyone dies, remember?”

“You don’t understand,” Mayuzumi snapped, shook his head. His face was an open book and Akashi wanted to trace the ridges of his cheekbones and the sharp line of his nose until he understood each and every word. “Forget it. Nevermind.”

(Mayuzumi would never harm  _him,_ but that didn’t mean–)

The silence returned to them.

“I should say I’m sorry,” Akashi said, lying back on the bed. He stared up at the ceiling.

Mayuzumi snorted. “Yeah? For what?”

_Nothing. Everything._ “Making you pretend.”

Shrugging, Mayuzumi said, “You didn’t make me do anything.”

“I suppose.” They’d known each other long enough to know that meant  _no._

It’d been easy for Midorima to compare it to a talk with an old friend, but all of him knew it was nothing like that.

“You should get to the point. You didn’t just come here for small talk, yeah?” Mayuzumi’s words had him staring. He was right - there was more to it than either of them wanted to admit.

Akashi took a sharp breath. “Are you alright with just being here?”

Mayuzumi answered him with a shrug of his shoulders. “Not really.”

This was less about him than it was about Mayuzumi. The problem had  _never_ been Mayuzumi, after all.

“I could fix that,” he said. “If you wanted me to.”

“Is this about what I want?”

“Yeah.”  _If it wasn’t, I wouldn’t have asked you in the first place._

Mayuzumi was smiling at him in a way that was neither happy nor sad. Akashi had never been able to understand it. “Looks like we really have outgrown each other.”

When Akashi told him it wasn’t about that, Mayuzumi shrugged again. “I know.”

_It had never been about that._

He made as if to leave and before he could, Mayuzumi said, “Wait for a moment.” Was he afraid it would be their last meeting? That didn’t seem like him.

Akashi did.

“Tell me how you’ve been doing,” Mayuzumi said. To anyone else, it would have seemed like a foolish request. “You’ve gotten older.”

“Not as old as you,” Akashi said without missing a beat.

Mayuzumi made a face. “Close enough.”

“Not really.”

_Tell me how you’ve been doing_ , Mayuzumi had said, and Akashi did - although he was not sure what there was to tell. He told him of his eventual takeover of the company (even though that would not be for another few years, give or take), of Midorima, of how sometimes he felt old but not old enough to do what he was brought up to do. Talking about it felt strange when Akashi was well aware he hadn’t been a child for quite some time. For a brief moment he considered asking Mayuzumi how he had been doing before he remembered. Mayuzumi listened to him as he used to and rarely said anything - if he did have something to say, he did it with a slight nod of his head. When he was younger, he thought it was because Mayuzumi didn’t understand, but now he realized it was quite the opposite. Even words could not make up for lost time. He was alright with that, even if it was because he didn’t have much of a choice.

(Mayuzumi had gone back to “being imaginary” but he had never stopped being his friend. The guilt was tremendous.)

When he was done, Mayuzumi said, “And I have one more request.”

Akashi hated the way he said that; it made it seem like a premature goodbye, as if Mayuzumi was on his deathbed and they were parting ways with nothing but a makeshift will between them.

“What is it?” Akashi said anyway.

**(TWENTY-FOURTH.)  
** **xxiv.**

“Are you sure you’re going to be okay?” Midorima said as he followed him up the stairs. Mibuchi was already in tow, ready to do what he was being paid for. Akashi stopped them in the middle of the hallway and looked to the door of his old room.

“Certain.” He considered explaining to Midorima that Mayuzumi was his friend, after all, but decided against it, at least with Mibuchi present.

Mibuchi watched the both of them but said nothing. Akashi wondered if he’d had other customers with such petty whims before.

Midorima tried again: “If anything seems off, just–”

“I’ll be fine.” He looked Midorima straight in the eye, who bit his lip but said nothing else. He trusted Akashi, anyway - he wouldn’t have been there in the first place if he did not. “I promise.”

Even when he was quite possibly the person with the least control in the situation, he couldn’t help acting like it. Akashi said to Mibuchi, “Are you ready?”

After Mibuchi told him yes, Akashi pulled the door open and then pushed it shut behind him. He stood alone in the room, separate from the world outside, separate from Midorima and Mibuchi. Although it was a pretense, it was a comforting one. The room looked warmer and cleaner without all the dust it had earlier (Akashi had gone and requested the maids clean it and they obliged despite the apparent confusion they showed at his request). The curtains were drawn despite the day outside. If it had fallen upon Mayuzumi, it would have shown right through him.

Mayuzumi was on the bed where he seemed to have always belonged and where they agreed they would sit while Mibuchi did… whatever Mibuchi was going to do. Akashi strode over and sat in it, waiting as it creaked beneath his weight. Did Mayuzumi ever feel like a child?

Asking him the same question he’d asked Mibuchi, Akashi said, “Are you ready?”

Mayuzumi opened one eye. “Yeah. Don’t keep me waiting.”

“You’re mean as ever.” He shifted on the bed and it creaked again. It was becoming a familiar sound and one he had come to memorize, like the sound of Mayuzumi’s voice and the particular shade of his suit.

“You’re bossy as ever.”

“Case in point.” He glanced at Mayuzumi again. There was too much he didn’t understand - why Mayuzumi had chosen to stay, why Mayuzumi had chosen to lie, why he was the only one who could see him in the first place. It hadn’t mattered during their first meeting and it did not matter during their last.

“So are we gonna get going or what?”

“Oh. Right.” Akashi wondered if Midorima and Mibuchi could hear them, if they were wondering who Akashi was offering his words to. Again, it didn’t matter. He was coming to discover that in the small breadth of a moment, less and less was mattering. He took the book from Mayuzumi and was about to open the cover before he hesitated, wondering if it was the last time he would ever do so. “From the beginning?”

“Yeah,” said Mayuzumi. “Right from the very beginning.”

“Even the dedication?”

“Don’t get cheeky.”

Akashi had to laugh. For a little bit, there’d been a slow hum of noise from outside his room, but now there was only quiet. He couldn’t have made it last any longer.

“You know,” came Mayuzumi’s voice. Akashi looked at him, saw how he’d closed both of his eyes and was readying himself for the goodbye.  _Goodbye_ \- both of them were tiptoeing around the word like it was a landmine. “You were a weird kid. Why’d you trust me right from the start?”

“Because,” Akashi said, as if the answer was something he’d always known. “You’re my friend.”

He flipped open the cover, and began to read.


End file.
